


Please Don't Leave Again

by Im_a_Jorts_Man



Category: The Adventure Zone (Podcast)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Hospital, F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-03-28
Updated: 2019-03-28
Packaged: 2019-12-25 16:31:14
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,333
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18265130
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Im_a_Jorts_Man/pseuds/Im_a_Jorts_Man
Summary: Blupjeans hospital AU, presented without further comment.





	Please Don't Leave Again

 

The man that she was caring for woke up from the feeling of the cold alcohol wipe in the crook of his arm. And then the sting of the needle she inserted. His reaction was a soft “ow” and then his eyes slightly opened. Dark brown. And pleading, instantly, rather than confused. They said ‘just tell me what happened’ as if he already knew the moment that he woke up where he was. 

 

He was found by a good samaritan, passed out and heavily injured on the side of a road. Most likely hit by a car. There was nothing to identify him by on his person. His only belongings were the clothes on his back and a small, well loved notebook. It was left on top of his folded clothes on the table next to him, and she had been tempted for days to peek inside. 

 

“Hello, there,” she said to him with her gentle bedside tone. “How are you feeling?” 

 

“I’m…” he weakly looked around the room, carefully assessing his environment before setting his eyes back on her and responding. “I, uh -- I’ve been better.” 

 

She smiled. A smile of empathy and a smile of gratefulness for his lucidity and his calm acceptance of the situation. He didn’t panic, he didn’t yell at her, he didn’t try to rip out his IVs or do anything that might have hurt himself in a way where she would have to restrain him and call for help. She set a hand on his forehead in a motherly gesture, checking his temperature the old fashioned way despite the thermometer in her apron.   

 

“Bit clammy, cold. Is there anything I can get for you?” 

 

“I guess water… I think I could drink some water.” 

 

She turned and reached to the tray behind her, already having a cup of water and a straw ready. She helped him drink, and then she was surprised by his first question.

 

“What’s your name?”

 

Not, ‘Where am I?’ Or ‘Who the fuck are you?’ but a warm, gravelly voice asking her what her name was. 

 

“It’s Lup. And yours?”

 

“Barry.”

 

She set the glass of water back on the metal tray behind her. “Hi, Barry. You’re in Heartsfield hospital; someone found you on the side of the road. What’s the last thing you remember?” 

 

“Well, uh… probably not anything that you would believe.” 

 

She grinned. Now she was intrigued. “Try me.” 

 

“All right.” He inhaled and looked away from her, down at his hands. “Well. The last thing I remember was being on a different planet. Where I was a scientist, specializing in planar, or multiverse theory. I was about to embark on -- some sort of research trip? That’s where it starts to get fuzzy.” He looked back up at her. “And then I woke up in an alien world with a different colored sky and one sun instead of two. I wandered into the middle of a black pathway and was hit by some sort of machine.” 

 

Lup raised her eyebrows. “A… car?” 

 

“I don’t know.” He sighed at seeing the look on her face. “I told you…” 

 

“No, no, no, it’s just… not something that I’ve heard before.” She set a hand on his. “I’m not going to completely dismiss you out of hand, but please understand that we’re going to have to make sure that--”

 

“That I’m not suffering some sort of brain trauma that is making me delusional.” 

 

Lup was quiet, hesitated, but then slightly shrugged. “Pretty much.” 

 

“That’s fine. I completely understand that. Like I said, I am a man of science, after all.” He smiled warmly at her. 

 

He was so confident and calm. She really did want to believe him just based off of his personality. He didn’t talk like someone who was confused. That didn’t necessarily mean anything, and she had seen enough in her line of work to know that people have all kinds of unpredictable reactions to trauma, but… there was something about him.  

  
  


At home that night, she kept thinking about the spaceman, as she had started referring to him as, privately. She felt drawn to him in a strange way, like she knew him from another life. What he said was odd and couldn’t be true but… it was almost familiar at the same time. She found herself looking forward to seeing him and caring for him the next day. 

 

***

 

“I don’t think that you should tell anyone else what you told me.” She spoke in a hushed voice after greeting him and bringing him breakfast and checking his stats. 

 

He smiled at her, a knowing smile. She believed at least something about what he said. Or she at least believed that he wasn’t completely out of his mind. It was comforting, and he knew it was the most empathy that he would probably find from anyone with him telling that kind of story. He had a feeling instantly upon meeting her that she was safe to be honest with. 

 

“Yeah, I actually kind of already figured that I shouldn’t.”

 

She nodded, relieved. And then, had a thought. “Is there a reason you told me?”

 

He was unsure what exactly to say in response. “Is there a reason that you don’t think I’m losing it?” 

 

She shook her head. Then inhaled as if to say something, stopped. And shook her head again. 

 

“It feels like there is a reason, doesn’t it?” He studied her face, both to look for a reaction, but also because it was somehow calming and -- just, nice to look at her. 

 

She looked away from him. Hesitant to be unprofessional, but feeling strongly for some reason that it was okay to be… with him, only. 

 

After a prolonged silence, she finally said, “It does feel like that.” She turned back to look at him, and was startled by the heavy gaze he had on her. 

 

“I have other patients I need to check in on.” She was nervous. She hurriedly got up and left the room. 

 

***

 

“I’m getting a CT scan today.” 

 

“I know.” Lup sat at the chair by his bed. With most patients, she was never off of her feet while she tended to them. But, she almost  _ had  _ to sit down around him. His presence was relaxing. She wanted to linger and she wanted to hear his voice, rough as it was. But, she was afraid to hear  _ what  _ he said and she was afraid about believing him. She couldn’t tear herself away nonetheless. 

 

“What are you going to think if I do have brain damage?” 

 

She was quiet for a moment before responding. “Then, I’ll think that you have brain damage. But…” she trailed off.

 

“But?” He was eager for her response.

 

“Having brain damage doesn’t mean that  _ everything _ you say or think isn’t true or real.”

 

He smiled, relieved. She was amazing. Empathetic, kind, trustworthy -- such familiar qualities...  _ so  _ familiar. He felt sure that he had known someone like her before. Someone he had trusted with his life. 

 

***

 

They moved him somewhere else. Apparently, some strange things had come up in his scan. Strange enough for him to not be treated at their facility anymore. And she wasn’t told where he was taken to. It seemed to be something that wasn’t meant to be known. And none of the other staff were interested or found it strange. Patients were moved in and out of other facilities all of the time, depending on what level of care they needed. 

 

Days went by, and for some reason, the loss of her patient turned into a deep river of pain. Her thoughts about him were constant, wondering where he was, whether he was okay, what was happening to him. She only knew his first name -- and it didn’t seem like it would matter even if she knew more about him. If what he said was true (but how  _ could _ it be) then there wouldn’t be any way of finding him in public records, no matter how much information she had. 

 

She tried to let it go. After all, what could she do? What could she do except for the favor to herself of letting it go and getting over it? 

 

It ended up being an impossible task, though. 

 

But. She was about to do something about it … something reckless, something potentially career-ending. 

 

***

 

_ She couldn’t believe it. The adrenaline rushing through her was giving her the ability to run faster than what was possible for her body. She had been able to sneak in without the night staff seeing her. There were so many moments where she had almost been caught, but she wasn’t. Every thought in her head was about what would happen if she was… what would she do what would she say what would her face look like why hadn’t she thought of something to say why didn’t she have a better plan other than to just run in and rifle through the drawer where she had last seen his records and steal them?  _

 

No one had seen her, but she still ran and she still looked over her shoulder and she was still shaking, and she didn’t even know where she was running to. She probably looked so suspicious, and there was no reason to at that point, she didn’t need to run, she didn’t need to look over her shoulder. 

 

She stopped, finally, by a grocery store. She didn’t know why. She just ran out of breath and it felt like it was okay to be there. She stood outside and slowly opened the folder, holding her breath. And the last mention of where Barry had been was in Heartsfield hospital, room 108. And with her listed as his attending nurse. There was no more. 

 

***

 

_ Five years later.  _

 

She thought about him constantly that first year. Then frequently, and then eventually infrequently. But she had never  _ completely  _ stopped thinking about him. Ever since she met him, ever since she  _ lost  _ him, there was something empty in her. And whether or not she actively thought about him, she still felt that emptiness every day. Seeing him and hearing him had triggered something within her, activated some part of her core being that would not turn off.  

 

Several times, she thought she saw him. But it was just someone that looked like him from a certain angle. Or she would hear a voice like his from an aisle over in the grocery store, and she would quicken her pace and turn down the aisle and see a man holding a woman’s hand with two children running around their shopping cart and her heart would drop and crack on the floor. But then, she would see that it wasn’t him. Which was even worse -- she would do anything to know that he was okay, even if he was out of her reach, even if he didn’t remember her. 

 

Every time she would start to feel some distance from the pain -- that was always when she saw someone that looked like him, or she thought of or heard of something that made her think of him. 

 

Barry     two suns     the universe     a scientist an alien       a small worn notebook hit by a car       a mystery 

 

The first thing that he wanted when he woke up was to know her name.

 

Was she going to spend her life missing him? Missing the man that she had tended to for only a couple of weeks, half of which he was unconscious for? That was ridiculous, wasn’t it? 

 

***

 

She started to have strange dreams. Dreams filled with the feeling of anticipation. The knowledge that something was coming, but not knowing what. Just… needing to be ready, needing to accept it, to recognize it when it came. A small voice formed in her head, at first when she was sleeping, and then it started up when she was awake as well. Be ready, be ready, be ready. Be ready to trust, to accept. 

 

She didn’t know what she was waiting for, all she knew, all she could feel, was that her heart needed to be completely, without question, without doubt, open. 

 

Until one night, he had finally reached the end of his travels from so far away. From where he had been taken to, after being moved multiple multiple times, until he reached the far off place where he had eventually died. Outside of her window, he hoped beyond hope that the messages he desperately put into the universe had made it to her. That the thoughts he projected to her through their bond, one of the strongest bonds to ever exist, if not the strongest, had reached her. He hoped that something broke through the static enough that she would accept him into her home, that she would at least listen to him and not reject him outright.  

 

Outside of her window, he could hear her. Her dreams called to him, loudly. She had been preparing, she was ready, her heart was open wide for the unknown. Even without memory, she still trusted him implicitly, she still felt him somewhere in the liminal space between their realities, between their forms. He easily walked through her window, into her bedroom. The tall, massive, glowing red, skeletal spectral being didn’t frighten her when her eyes fluttered open. She didn’t know why, couldn’t have possibly explained it. But she knew exactly what to do. 

 

She lifted up the blanket next to her, inviting the red robed spectre into her bed. And with him lying next to her, his arm partially phased through her as he tried his best to hold on to her, she looked into the blackened skeletal face with gratitude in her eyes. 

 

“You’re back.”

 

“I am.”  The voice was a hollow whisper, like the wind, but she knew it was the voice that she missed, no matter how different it sounded. 

 

She closed her eyes and freely allowed the tears to form. 

 

“Please don’t leave again.” 


End file.
